Humor

The 10 Biggest Videogame Explosions...

Michael Bay isn't the first person to tack on needless explosions. The videogame industry has been doing this for decades. This is because nearly every videogame needs there to be Really Bad Things done by some Really Bad Guy. Sometimes this bad guy will have a rich backstory, complete with origins and reasons for their hatred of the main character. Sometimes this bad guy is just an unexplainable dick. To convey the magnitude of this dickiness, imagine you're in line at the post office. The old lady in front of you insists on paying for 34 postage stamps in pennies. What's your reaction? If you're like the following video villains, you'd probably demolish the post office building and assassinate the postmaster general. That seems to be the modus overkillus for the following.

On one hand, you have the Returners, who fight the evil empire to protect the magical Espers. On the other hand you have Kefka, who hates the Returners, the General, the Emperor, and maintaining recognizable sanity. In a grab for power, Kefka reaches three ancient statues on a floating continent which control the balance of the world (ultra-creatively named the "World of Balance"). Once there, he uses the ill-gotted Warring Triad to gain their powers, becoming an omnipotent character who can kill people with a wave of his hand.

Notice that, at this point, Kefka has already achieved the God-like powers that every decent super-villain aspires to obtain. He's pretty much won, he just needs to zap the Returners to their demise and descend to rule the world.

Not as simple. For no explained reason other than he's crazier than a rabid dog on amphetamines, Kefka starts screwing with the statues by moving them all over the place. This causes the needless destruction of most of the World (but it does make a pretty cool cut-scene):

We could harp for hours on this one. First and foremost, Kefka destroyed most of the World he was newly crowned ruler of. This leaves him less to rule over than the mayor of Detroit. Second, every Returner survives the attack, eventually overtaking the evil and non-fortuitous Kefka. The writers of the script basically needed to hit the "reset" button. However, having the man who created most of the plot up until this point decide to "reset" everything is a notion as ridiculous in concept as it was in execution. Here are three more believable ways the plot could have unfolded in the exact same manner.

1. Kefka infuses himself with the power of the statues. He kills his partner, the Emperor. With his dying breath, the emperor knocks over a couple of statues, causing the apocalypse and a great "Did I do that?" moment worthy of Steve Urkel.

2. Kefka breaks the statues by draining them of their power, rather than breaking them during a needless rampage/temper tantrum.

3. Unicorns fly into the floating island, which turns into talking spaghetti and ruptures the fabric of space-time. Again, still more believable than what actually happened.

While defecting, Smoke is captured by Mortal Kombat's Lin Kuei ninjas. Apparently, "ninja" is a career you go into after getting your degree in robotics, because the Lin Kuei are able to reprogram Smoke into a cyborg. His one mission: kill Sub-Zero.

Pick a fight with anyone except Sub-Zero, then blow up THE ENTIRE WORLD:

The Lin Kuei had to know this was coming -- they stored dozens of nukes in his chest cavity. Why the cybernetics? Why do they need to program a robot to blow up the entire world? Are the Lin Kuei sitting on Mars, watching the explosion and saying, "That'll teach Sub-Zero to mess with computer nerd ninjas?" If so, the joke's on them.

After performing the "blow up the world" fatality, Smoke is pitted against another fighter in the same world he just destroyed. Sometimes, this opponent will be Sub-Zero, himself.

Russian Ultranationalist Imran Zakhaev wants to revert Russia back to the Soviet Union. Well, that's not really the specific "dispute" in question, here. The "dispute" here is that the world's armies are starting to sniff around Russia, and Zakhaev wants something to throw them off the scent.

In order to distract the world from this evil plan, Zakhaev plans a coup in the Middle East. When this doesn't work, he detonates a nuclear bomb:

Using a "nuclear bomb" as "sleight of hand" is the equivalent to a magician making your watch disappear by punching you unconscious.

This one's not hard to figure out. Before, the world was merely content to casually investigate Zakhaev with small groups of trained paramilitary. The world was already kind of distracted, until the nuclear bomb went off. Then every military unit on Earth united to track down and kill Zakhaev, preventing any further Communist revolution. Zakhaev probably regrets not using the nuke to threaten the world and get his own private island.

Space Pirates stole a baby Metroid from Samus Aran. Keep in mind Samus Aran exists solely to crush Metroids, so we are confused as to why she cares. Either way, this meaningless dispute is enough to send Samus to the Space Pirates' home planet, where she confronts the evil Mother Brain. Mother Brain is the creation of the Space Pirates, she is their biomechanical leader. Mother Brain and Samus begin a final fight for control of the metroid.

Upon losing, Mother Brain blows up the entire planet:

Keep in mind that this is the second Mother Brain. At the end of the original Metroid, Mother Brain initiated a self-destruct sequence which destroyed her compound. That means the Space Pirates rebuilt her with an even shittier self-destruct mechanism.

Besides the obvious part where Samus escapes, it's important to note that Mother Brain needlessly destroyed the home base of the Space Pirates. Everything would have been fine, had they not programmed her with the Acme Super Villain Self-Destruct Sequence (Acme salesmen need a raise). The Space Pirates could've rebuilt a new Mother Brain and recaptured the metroid. That is, if they weren't space dust.

Giant mech suits called Gears invade a quiet mountain town at night. They want to interrogate a young man named Fei. This is the first overreaction -- firebombing a town when you could just roll in and kidnap one teenager. However, the big mistake comes when Fei decides to fight back by hopping into a Gear suit.

Using the suit, Fei blows away the Gears, his entire town, and everyone in it:

Ironically, Fei is forced to flee the town (it's ironic because there's no town to flee, get it?).

Well, the game isn't called "Xenogears... and then some other stuff after the Xenogears get destroyed by a teenager." Fei spends the entire lengthy game being pursued by Gears and his own psychoses.

It's important to note that this isn't the only stupid explosion in Xenogears. The Eldridge is a floating spaceship designed for the sole purpose of containing a dangerous and sentient missile defense system. When the system begins to take over the Eldridge spaceship, the captain has an important decision to make. Should he attempt to reprogram or dismantle the system? Maybe this mysterious on-board force, the Zohar, can be helpful. Nope, the captain decides that blowing up the ship is totally necessary:

Naturally, this doesn't work, or people would've just blown up the defense system rather than create a giant spaceship to house it.